My name is Mariam Adnan I’m a roving child protection manager for Save the Children in Yemen and I’m writing to you from our office in Sana’a.
Sana’a is Yemen’s largest city and one of the most ancient in the world. The night before I wrote this, airstrikes hit the city yet again. Not surprisingly, most of us at work today said we had disturbed nights, but I want to assure you the strikes don’t stop us doing our jobs. We all used to be afraid of them, but now we have adapted. I know such adaptation is a negative thing, but it’s about coping. Strikes do not stop me looking forward to coming to work and travelling to help children throughout my country.
Today I have some wonderful news to share. One of our field team members delightedly gave me some positive feedback from a mother whose daughter suffered a terrible and disabling injury during the war. Thanks to the psychosocial support provided through our child protection programmes, the little girl has started to laugh and talk again and is asking to go back to school. She wants to study to be a doctor. The mother thanks Save the Children for saving her daughter’s life. It makes me smile widely whenever I think about it – this makes our work so worthwhile.
But behind this great news, I am sorry to tell you there is still so much suffering. Yemen is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis. Our children face attacks on their homes and schools. They die from entirely preventable causes – hunger, or treatable illnesses and diseases. An estimated 2.3 million children under five in Yemen are expected to go hungry or be on the brink of starvation by the end of this year. That’s half of all children in that age bracket.
I work with our Yemen Save the Children field teams who are on the front lines 24/7. The demands on them are enormous.
We see children injured through the ongoing conflict, unaccompanied and separated children, unable to go to school as their schools are bombed…the list is never ending. So, the load on the field team is huge. Lack of funding means the situation is very difficult.
Part of my job involves regular visits in four field offices across Yemen. These visits take a lot of planning. I need appropriate authority and paperwork to get through the various checkpoints. Sometimes I travel for more than 17 hours driving through mountains and sometimes unsafe roads. But I will never complain – field teams go through this daily just to reach remote project sites.
Yet, I believe that innovations are born from hardships. Yemeni humanitarian aid workers are always challenged, but they never give up and they find a way to deliver support to the beneficiaries. I am proud to be one of them.
The other day I noticed one colleague who was working very late – so often he is the first one in and the last one to leave our office. I told him to go home to his family. He laughed, pointed at his laptop and said: “This is my family now!”. This feeling is true for all of our team. We strongly feel part of the Save the Children family and help each other through good times and bad. Knowing that you are part of our family and are supporting Yemeni children in such urgent need, means the world to us.
Thank you for everything you do to support our work. Tonight, I’ll be going to bed, thinking of the little girl you have helped make so much progress.
My very best wishes to you. Mariam
